I’ll Go To Bed At Noon
Page 47
‘Yes. The bath is very good. And the toilet as well.’
‘They’re very good toilets those ones. Very good toilets.’ The plumber spoke as one who knew all the makes and models of toilets on the market. He made as if about to leave, then hesitated and said, ‘My place is just around the corner. Do you want to come round for a cup of tea?’
‘Yes,’ said Aldous, clambering out of the flower-bed. His knees and bottom felt damp. He staggered a little after straightening up, and as he made his way out of the front garden back onto the pavement, he nearly fell over. The bulk of Butcher seemed all the greater up close, and being out of doors he was made even bulkier by the great black donkey jacket he was wearing, the collar turned up. When on the pavement Aldous could see that he had two Dobermans, their two leads bunched in his one fist. Minnehaha and Hiawatha. The dogs were sleek sharks, glossy and tapered, but somehow calm and respectful.
‘I’ve been meaning to call round for ages,’ Butcher said as they walked along side by side. Aldous had difficulty keeping a steady course, so that he kept crashing softly into Butcher, who absorbed these impacts easily. Such a solid man. ‘It’s been up and working for months now, but I only finished it properly the other week.’
Aldous had no idea where he was. He didn’t recognize the street they were in, or the busy road they turned into at the end. Butcher lead Aldous over a zebra crossing, then down a side street, slightly shabbier.
‘I’m retired now, like you. So I’ve had plenty of time. I’ve spent many happy hours . . .’
They were at the plumber’s house. The building itself was one of the old houses that had survived the influx of suburban building, an elegant rural villa like many that had once dotted the pastoral countryside. Still Victorian, but going back deeper into the nineteenth century than any of the surrounding structures. It stood apart from the uniformity of the streets. The front garden was an undergrowth of brambles and shrubby sycamores.
‘I cut the bastards back every now and then but they just keep coming up.’
Butcher rattled his keys and they entered the house.
‘I bought this place because of the land. It used to be owned by the lord of the manor hereabouts, when this was all farms . . .’
They moved through the hall and then a room heaped with junk that stank of socks and urine, to a conservatory area at the back where a row of white enamel lavatories stood with an inverted row on top of them.
‘There you are. What do you think?’
Butcher gestured at the view beyond the glass. The dogs pawed at the door to be let out. It was an enormous garden. Exceptionally huge. Not even the chief executives who lived in Parsons Lane had gardens this big, Aldous thought. To the left was a large shed with a chimney which looked remarkably like, and in fact was, an old blacksmith’s workshop. Then there was a tangle of metalworking paraphernalia, heaps of glittering swarf in long curlicues, rusted bits of machinery, half-made wrought iron gates, fences, pergolas. The main part of the garden was an open space bordered by a high fence and a fringe of stately ash trees, and seemed to be landscaped for a miniature railway whose tracks cut a snaking course around the garden. Aldous remembered Butcher talking many times about his passion for model railways, though he had had no idea it had been on such a grand scale. There were tunnels, bridges, and an engine shed to the right. The whole arrangement was focused on a large pond in the centre of the garden, almost a lake, prettily decked with rushes and lily pads. There was so much in Butcher’s garden that it was a while before his attention came to rest on the thing in the centre of the pond. A tall structure that Aldous had at first taken for a dead tree, until he saw that it was intricately made of bronze, and consisted of a flock of doves, interlinked and frozen in their moment of rising from the ground and soaring into the air.
‘Doesn’t look bad does it? Nearly three years’ work there. A hundred and fifty separately moulded parts welded together. Just about the biggest thing I’ve ever made . . .’
Aldous had become a statue himself, open-mouthed.
‘Wait till you see it in water,’ said Butcher. He put down the white paper bag on the table and ambled back into the main part of the house. Aldous glanced down at the white bag, saw that it contained four iced finger buns. There was some distant rummaging from the back of the house, then a muffled cry of ‘Here we go.’ Aldous looked out of the window. For several seconds, nothing. Then, at the very top of the fountain eight feet in the air, a little wobbling bulge of water. It then broke and began sliding across the backs of the bronze doves, falling off the wing tips of one dove onto the backs of others, then onto others and so on as the water spread throughout the structure, weaving in and out of the wings, falling in daintily straight lines, just as Aldous had hoped it would, a great web of falling water through which the doves appeared to be soaring.
‘That is what I call a decent fountain,’ said Butcher as he unlocked the back door for the dogs. They shot into the garden like two fighter jets, snapping at the air and twisting, then peeing emphatically against one of the trees. ‘Come on. Let’s have a look.’
They passed through into the garden. The ground was barren, grassless. The fountain made a cooing noise.
‘How did you . . .’ Aldous began.
‘Your wife,’ said Butcher, ‘just after I finished the bathroom, she came round and asked me if I wanted to have a go at doing your statue. I’d already said I’d like to, if you remember. So I thought I’d have a go. I came round to pick the model up one day when you were out. I think she told you she’d posted it off to Durham, or wherever those stingy monks were. She wanted it kept secret. A surprise for you . . .’
‘She’s . . .’
‘I know,’ Butcher said hastily, ‘I read it in the paper. I’d say welcome to the club, but mine’s still alive, though she ran off with an electrician ten years ago. Perhaps that’s worse. It’s a bad business whatever way you look at it. I read about Janus as well. Children are cruel, I’ve always said it. You’ve got to try and make them happy, though – I’ve learnt that from my railway. I made this for me, this railway, being a big kid myself, but once word got round that I’d got a railway in my back garden the kids were coming from miles around, hanging over the back fence to get a look. I tried telling them to piss off at first but they just kept coming back. I tried putting higher fences up, but they’d watch through the cracks. Then I thought – how can I sit on one of my trains, a grown man, riding round and round my garden, knowing that dozens of kids are watching me, wishing they could have a go? In the end I had to let them in and give them a turn. So now every Sunday this garden’s full of screaming kids and me chugging around. It’s the only way I can cope with them. They’re not bad once you let them in. They’re still cruel little bastards, but they’re not that bad. When they saw the fountain working for the first time they were bloody amazed. They thought it was even better than the trains, for a while.’
Butcher turned to Aldous, as though struck by a sudden idea.
‘Why don’t I get them going for you?’
‘What?’
‘One of my trains. It only takes about half an hour to steam them up. I’ll show you. You can only really appreciate your fountain when you see it from the train.’
Aldous wasn’t left with any option as Butcher made his way over to the engine shed, although he did call over his shoulder, ‘Not in a hurry are you?’
No. Aldous wasn’t in a hurry. While one of the engines was firing up, Butcher made them tea. He brought out a little table and a pair of chairs, and he put his iced buns on a plate, and they ate iced buns and drank strong, sweet tea, while one of Butcher’s home-built steam engines produced a gradually increasing hissing sound from inside its shed.
When the hissing had built to a crescendo and wisps of steam were coming from the shed, Butcher disappeared into it. There was a sound of metal levers shifting, a change in the volume of the hissing. It suddenly became muffled. Then there came a puff. Not the toy-train, pipsque
ak puff Aldous had been expecting, but a real, deep-throated puff, a serious, grown-up puff as from a real steam engine. Then another, then another, and a cloud of white steam suddenly billowed out of the shed, and then from within this cloud emerged a steam engine, about the size and bulk of a large sheep, though longer, a beautifully made model, in red, of an express shielder of the sort that worked the railways in the last days of steam. And on the tender sat Butcher, his hat now suddenly making perfect sense, it was an engine driver’s hat. Aldous was dumbfounded by the craftsmanship of the thing, the perfect rendering of its detail, the wheels, the pistons, the little brass whistle.
‘You didn’t make this all yourself,’ he said as he walked up to the now stationary engine.
‘My life’s work,’ said Butcher, proudly slapping the cabin roof, which resounded with a reassuringly solid noise of ringing metal. ‘Climb aboard.’
Aldous climbed onto the seat behind Butcher. There was only just room, and behind him was a stack of coal.
And then they were off. Aldous felt the surge of machinery beneath him, the pull of steam power, boiling water, fossil smoke, that old familiar smell he hadn’t smelt properly for years, and the vibration and click click click of the rails beneath. They journeyed the circuit of Butcher’s garden, building up to a decent speed, a fast walking pace, then faster than walking, enough to conjure a breeze around Aldous’s ears, as they journeyed around the lake, the dove fountain sparkling, then through a tunnel, over a bridge, through a cutting, past the lake again, the doves still trickling . . .
The noise was such that Aldous couldn’t hear what Butcher was saying to him as he called over his shoulder, but he could see what he meant. He was pointing to a hanging lever in the cabin, gesturing that Aldous should pull it. So Aldous, knowing what it was, reached forward as far as he could. A triumphant shriek of steam burst into the air. Just like a real train whistle. Butcher laughed. Aldous laughed. They were coming up to the tunnel again. Butcher gestured that Aldous should give it another go, but Aldous didn’t need asking. He pulled the lever again and again sending piercing shrieks echoing around the trees above them, and each shriek accompanied by a plume of white steam, as they rushed round the bend, whooooosh!
BY GERARD WOODWARD
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August
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
Also By Gerard Woodward
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part Two
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Three
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part Four
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part Five
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28